CONVENTION IN ALBANY AND HEARING BEFORE THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE IN THE ASSEMBLY CHAMBER.
February 7th and 8th, 1861.
The last Convention before the War was held in Albany. Ernestine L. Rose, Lucretia Mott, William Lloyd Garrison, Rev. Beriah Green, Aaron M. Powell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony were the speakers. They had a hearing also before the Judiciary Committee on the bill then pending asking divorce for various causes.* The interest in the question was intense at this time,
and hearings before the Legislature. She knew a large number of the members and men of influence, who all felt a profound respect for that dignified, judicious Quaker woman. Her home was not only one of the depots of the underground railroad, where slaves escaping to Canada were warmed and fed, but it was the hospitable resort for all reformers. Everything about the house was clean and orderly, and the table always bountiful, and the food appetizing. As such men as Seward and Marcy, leaders from opposite political parties, Gerrit Smith, Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, Remond, Foster, Douglass, representing all the reforms, met in turn at Miss Mott's dinner-table, she had the advantage of hearing popular questions discussed from every standpoint. And Miss Mott was not merely hostess at her table, but on all occasions took a leading part in the conversation. All of us who enjoyed her friendship and hospitality deeply feel her loss in that conservative city. [* Introduced, on notice, by Mr. Ramsey; read twice, and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary; reported from said Committee for the consideration of the Senate, and committed to the Committee of the Whole].
AN ACT IN REGARD TO DIVORCES DISSOLVING THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT.
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. In addition to the cases in which a divorce, dissolving the marriage contract, may now be decreed by the Supreme Court, such a divorce may be decreed by said court in either of the cases following:
1. Where either party to the marriage shall, for the period of three years next preceding the application for such divorce, have willfully deserted the other party to the marriage, and neglected to perform to such party the duties imposed by their relation.
2. Where there is and shall have been for the period of one year next preceding the application for such divorce, continuous and repeated instances of cruel and inhuman treatment by either party, so as greatly to impair the health or endanger the life of the other party, thereby rendering it unsafe to live with the party guilty of such cruelty or inhumanity.
§ 2. The foregoing sections shall not apply to any person who shall not have been an actual resident of this State for the period of five years next preceding such application for such divorce.
§ 3. Specifications one, two, and three of original section thirty-eight, of article three, of title one, of chapter eight, of part two of the Revised Statutes, shall apply to these causes for divorce as they now apply to the cause of adultery.
§ 4. The other provisions of the Revised Statutes relating to the granting of divorces for adultery, and regulating the form and manner of proceedings and decrees, and the effects thereof, and the restrictions and defences to the application thereof, shall be applicable to the granting of divorces for causes hereinabove specified, and all proceedings therefor and therein, so far and in such manner as the same may be capable of such application.
§ 5. This act shall take effect immediately.
